Retailers e.l.f. cosmetics, HauteLook, Ice.com Inc. and Wine.com Inc. recently shared their internal analytics data with Internet Retailer showing that when it comes to traffic and sales, Apple Inc.’s iPhone trounces Android devices. That’s true even though Android phones account for 52.5% of smartphones in use while iPhones account for 34.3%, according to mobile and web measurement firm comScore Inc.
Now comes further confirmation that in the realm of mobile commerce, the iPhone user is more valuable to merchants than the Android user: 68.0% of December 2012 smartphone-based sales at more than 300 retailers using the web-hosted m-commerce platform from Unbound Commerce are made on an iPhone or iPod Touch, the vendor reveals. 31.4% are made on Android smartphones, 0.3% on BlackBerrys, 0.2% on smartphones running Microsoft Corp.’s Windows Phone, and 0.1% on other smartphones, Unbound Commerce reports.
Further, the December 2012 average order value for iPhone users is 20% higher than that for Android smartphone users, Unbound Commerce says.
So how is it that there are far more Androids than Apples yet Apple accounts for so much more revenue? The answer lies with the Apple user, who is more affluent and more inclined toward mobile data usage, says Keith Lietzke, co-founder and marketing vice president at Unbound Commerce.
“Most Android devices are being sold as less expensive smartphones, priced well below the iPhone, thus appealing to a lower-income demographic,” Lietzke says. “Consumers with money to spend are more likely to spend it on an iPhone.”
What’s more, consumers who are very serious about the mobile web and apps—the locations where mobile commerce happens—are more likely to side with Apple, Lietzke says. “Those users for whom mobile browsing is a priority, versus an incidental feature, are more likely to spend the money for an iPhone,” he says.
Unbound Commerce also ran the traffic numbers for its more than 300 retailer clients and the story is much the same.
60.4% of December 2012 smartphone traffic stemmed from an iPhone or iPod Touch, the vendor says. 37.7% came from Android smartphones, 1.0% from BlackBerrys, 0.7% from Windows Phone devices, and 0.2% from other smartphones, the m-commerce vendor reports.
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